Can Mr Modi instill Confidence Amongst Farmers ?

The previous article titled ;Is Modi a Dumb Politician dated 04 Mar21 https://www.bharatamrising.com/latest-in-politics-3 related to the Farm laws is still applicable as it was then six months back. 

Even his worst detrators can not say that Mr Modi is a dumb politician.

So, the focus of this article will be only on why the protests are not fading away and What the Govt needs to do.

However, so much has been written in favour of the reforms that it is now pointless to discuss the merit of three laws which the farmers want to be rolled back.

Background

In last two decades more than a lac farmers have committed suicide, pick up any journal and enquire what did the experts and farmers say then one would notice that almost every expert had criticized the Mandi act and wanted to do away with them and every expert talked of freeing the shackles of marginal and poor farmers.

The farmers themselves, who are protesting now demanded that they be unshackled and allowed to sell anywhere.

Were the previous Govts not concerned? Were Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi and Capt Amrinder Singh indifferent to the farmers’ miseries ? If they could think of MNREGA and Food security Bill, Free Electricity then I think they were not indifferent in its real sense. A politician is not an idiot, he usually does things which can enhance their electoral prospects. 

So why did they not think of repealing the Mandi acts ? Obviously they knew that there will be political ramifications of any abolishing Mandis and had NO COURAGE to disturb the apple cart.

Therefore, the point arises that if the protest by farmers refuses to fade away then Is Mr Modi and his team purposely and consciously digging their graves, after all a huge huge percentage of India’s population is dependant on agriculture. 

why should they be doing this?

Those who accuse that this decision was taken to help big corporate houses, is once again a stupid argument because after all it is the farmers who are finally going to either vote Mr Modi in or out of power.

Lets not undermine the fact that we still have almost more than 60% of our population dependent on agriculture. How can Mr Modi be so stupid to antagonize the farmers.

Hence the PM has postponed the implementation of laws.

So, why are the farmers still agitating? 

Under the APMC Act of 2003, the states could establish agricultural markets, popularly known as mandis. The sale of agricultural commodities can occur only in the mandis through auction. The sales process in mandis is regulated through commission agents (CAs) who mediate between the farmers and traders. Obvioulsy any producer will then have to face whole lot of these challenges like collusion of commission agents, delay in payments,, lower price realisation, lack of transparency in the trading process and in many states a poor quality of infrastructure at Mandis.

 So, no wonder a survey conducted by a reporter found that 57% farmers are unhappy with the mandi system of sale.

Its been 18 years since the Mandi act came and many states like Punjab , Haryana have built reasonably good Mandi infrastructure to help their farmers.

The Arhaityas are not just the middle men who facilitate the transaction between farmers and the actual buyers. Arhtiyas also finance the farmers and also employ labourers who unload the grain from the farmer’s tractor-trolley in front of the Arhtiya’s shop for auctioning, cleaning, packaging (filling the produce in bags, weighing and stitching) and finally loading of them onto trucks for despatch from the mandi. He also provides food and accommodation to these labourers, apart from salary.

Lifting each farmer’s produce from the APMC mandi [to the buyers’ destination] is also their responsibility.

So, obviously the farmers and the arhatiyas work in close association.

1.    The fear is that these laws may make Mandis redundant and so the Arhatiyas will lose their jobs.

2.    With the planned parallel private market yard structure, arhtiyas and even farmers believe that the entire process – of the crop reaching the buyer from the farm gate – will slow down.

3.    The protesting farmers feel that this delay will in effect have a domino effect and delay the sowing for the next crop. This is why farmers have been outrightly supporting arhtiyas in.

4.    The farmers of Punjab and Haryana have got used to the Arhaitya system so well that they feel without Arhaityas there will be many problems like ;

A.     How so much of grain will be handled by private yards.

B.     Will the corporate sector make private grain yards every 8-10 kms like the Govt Mandis.

C.     The farmers feel that their produce gets sold through the arhtiyas very easily and in case of needs like if there is some problem at home the arhatiyas give them money also but if the coroporates come in this kind of help will not be there.

D.     If the corporate sector buys from us, we don’t know when we will get paid. What if we need money urgently.

E.      the only law – the FPTC Act, for short –is a major bone of contention. It permits sale and purchase of farm produce outside the premises of APMC mandis. Such trades (including on electronic platforms) shall attract no market fee, cess or levy “under any State APMC Act or any other State law”. So, if more and more farm produce takes place out of the APMCs, these regulated Mandis may not formally shut, but it would something like BSNL versus Bharti Airtel or Jio.

In view of the above, No wonder the reports suggest a mixed response. Some reports claim that a sizeable percentage of farmers almost 43% have inhibitions against the new laws and some claim mere 36%.

The question is not what percentage is happy and what percentage is not happy. The Govt should be concerned about addressing those anxieties and problems.

• In the absence of institutional credit for many farmers, they depend on Arhtiyas for money. How is the Govt going to address this issue ?
• Providing e mandis is damn good but ;
• A study undertaken by researchers for India Consensus in Rajasthan found that the cost of setting up e-mandis is Rs 34 lakh per mandi, or Rs 39 crore for the remaining 114 mandis where the electronic mandis have yet to be set up.
• The Costs include providing hardware, software and other peripherals and orientation programmes for farmers and traders.
• While electronic markets were highly successful in Karnataka,  the response across the rest of the country under e-NAM has been muted. In Rajasthan for example, after two years of implementation, only 2.5% of all produce by value was traded through e-mandis.
• Although the benefits of e mandi are huge But ;
• The e-mandis are still at a nascent stage. There have been reports that the necessary infrastructure to support e-mandis have been lacking in many places. 
• The farmers are not well versed with the norms of E Mandis. It looks damn good as an advertisement a Farmer holding a lap top and selling his farm product ON LINE but he is NOT YET READY FOR THAT.

So why disturb the established norms and practices when necessary infrastructure to support the reforms/ changes is still not existing.

The Indian agriculture market is not simple and its problems are pretty complex. For instance

The needs and problems of rich farmers, poor farmers and marginal farmers are different, the infrastructure procurement systems and procedures in all states is of different nature, the issues related to different crops are diverse. For instance the role of Arahityas in Punjab and Haryana, trading of sugarcane, paddy, wheat etc.

First ensure that e mandis start functioning properly, ensure that the concerns of farmers as mentioned above are taken care of.

Once that is done, it is quite likely that the Farmers will have no hesitation in accepting these laws which are after all made for their benefit.

As of now it appears to be more an issue of Confidence rather than anyother thing.